


Drowning In You

by definitelynotdaniel



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Drug Use, Gen, Ghosts, Graphic Description of Corpses, Guilt, Heavy Angst, M/M, Nightmares, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:53:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22962697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/definitelynotdaniel/pseuds/definitelynotdaniel
Summary: Ghosts are not real. Still, Edward is haunted.
Relationships: Oswald Cobblepot/Edward Nygma
Comments: 3
Kudos: 26





	Drowning In You

**Author's Note:**

> I have to update tags on this when I'm not exhausted and hurting so proceed with caution, there's corpses, there's what may be psychosis, there's guilt, theres angst, there's nightmares, NOTHING ABOUT THIS IS HAPPY! DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT IS APPLICABLE

Ghosts aren't real. Edward Nygma knows this for a fact. Scientifically it's impossible for consciousness to continue on without a body to inhabit, it defies all logic. Despite this knowledge, he feels haunted. The manor smells, reeking of bourbon Ed doesn't drink, tobacco he doesn't smoke, and cologne he doesn't wear. He swears he hears the sound of limping echoing through the halls, the occasional call of his name. Sleep brings no reprieve.

In his dreams, he's falling into the river after Oswald, trying to grasp his reaching hands but always falling short. Ed swims until his lungs burn, searching through bloody water until he wakes up gasping. All the while, that damn painting smirks at him from above the mantle like it knows something. 

He wonders if the certificate that declared him sane still applies now. 

Something has to be done, he decides. He burns candles to remove the smell, vanilla and lilac so _her_ scent can smoke out Oswald's spirit. He recites theorems and sequences, shouting numbers into the air so he doesn't hear the noises (his records had only seemed to amplify them). He even sprays a green question mark over the portrait, his own protective sigil against the judgemental stare. 

It doesn't help. The dreams still come, and they become hellish. Oswald rots before his eyes, fish eating at his exposed flesh, decay bruising and bloating his pale face. His eyes stare through Ed, clouded and unfocused, but still asking him "why". Cold, bound hands claw at him as Oswald tries to speak. No sound comes out, not even bubbles rise from the dead man's lungs, but Edward can practically hear him shrieking the word; why? 

The therapist he kidnaps says it's contrition. She tells him that he feels remorse for his vengeance, that he'll feel guilt over her murder as well. As he dismembers her body, he wonders if therapists ever know what they're talking about. 

That night, he dreams of Isabella. Sweet, beautiful, adoring Isabella, alive again in his arms. He holds her, breathing in her scent and drowning in the comfort it brings when she kisses him. His relief is short lived when she pulls away. Her body, broken again from the accident, separates from his and she starts to bleed dark, cold water until the space of his dream is flooded. She starts to sink, her corpse flickering to look like Oswald, and then her again. Edward finds himself diving after him ... her ... it.

The oscillating body's mouth moves as it sinks, begging him to save it. Ed can hear both their voices crying out, asking why he didn't save them, why he didn't do something to prevent all this. His lungs ache when he finally, finally reaches the the cadaver. It has settled on taking Oswald's rotted form, but he finds he cannot stop as he presses his lips against its mouth, using his last breath to try and force it to live again. 

He wakes up retching, the smell of decay and polluted water filling his lungs. His other self, who he was sure he had fused with, laughs darkly and remarks that Oswald is looking more like his father every day. The thought makes Ed gag again. 

In desperation, he turns to drink, then pills, then an unsafe combination of the two to try and block out the dreams. It only seems to make them angrier, as Edward now finds himself being dragged underwater. The two people who loved him now laugh and shriek like harpies as they drown him, the depressants only paralyzing him to stop them. This won't do. 

He tries coffee and energy drinks, distractions and scheming, he even tries an ice bath to keep himself awake, but still Ed succumbs, drowning himself again every few nights to try and save that which rots in the currents. Nothing works.

He must look a wreck when Barbara comes to call, must look every part the madman. She congratulates him on acting the role of a grieving best friend. Ed doesn't find it nearly as funny. She leaves him three plastic bags full of powder, telling him they can put the "pep back in his step". He considers them later, after she's left. What does he have to lose? He measures out equal amounts of each, putting a little into a pill casing before crushing it between his teeth. 

He doesn't sleep again for nearly a week, a blissful week of no dreams, no reminders that Oswald isn't here. His scent no longer permeates, his footsteps don't echo, Oswald is finally gone. And at first, Ed is content not to think of him.

Barbara is back, asking why he's not helping with the underworld and frankly, Ed couldn't care less about it. He doesn't know how Oswald could stand working with such idiots all the time. He tells her that he'll help when he's able, and she asks about the powders. She warns him that when she took them, she saw "crazy things". Ed dismisses it out of hand, as she was a woman bereft and Edward is not mourning, not really. He does, however, have a headache, and when she leaves, he cradles his head in his hands to shut out the light. 

When next his eyes open, it is dark in the house. He must have fallen asleep. And yet, no dreams! No torment! He is rested, at ease, comfortable at last. He decides to reward himself, to allow himself to sleep in his own room for the first time since the incident. But as he goes to the staircase, he has to pass the living room where he hears... Sobbing. 

Specifically, a woman sobbing. Ed thinks he hears her mumbling as well, her voice heavily accented, but her sorrow makes it impossible to understand. He should just call for help, for the police, but the gun he keeps on his person assures that she'll do no harm. He keeps a hand on it as he steps into the living room. 

The fireplace is lit, which Ed does not remember doing. The weeping woman sits on the couch in front of it, wringing a lace handkerchief as she cries. She's wearing a black dress, and her curly blond hair is in waves around her face. He's seen that profile before, and the way she sits looks almost like-

The floor creaks under Ed's feet. The woman turns and looks at him and there is now no doubting that this is Oswald's mother. The two of them don't share many features that Ed can observe, but the look of raw fury that lights her eyes when she sees him is definitely something Oswald inherited. She stands and begins to advance on him. 

"You," she hisses, pointing at him, "have broken my heart! You hurt my boy!"

Edward tries to explain, he tells her Oswald killed the one he loved. She laughs at him. 

"You do not know what love is." 

She has reached him now, and pushes him, hard. He thinks he feels all of his scars burning at once. 

"No one loved you before him, not even that silly girl," She pushes him again and he stumbles. "She did not see you and she could not love you." 

Edward is angry now too, and he tries to yell at her, but she shoves him again and he falls. 

"He loved you, and you tricked him, you hurt him, you used his father to haunt him, you even tried to kill him! Still, he was willing to die for you! He knew he had hurt you and would die to please you! And yet, are you happy?"

Edward has no answer, but she doesn't seem to want it anyway. She kicks him hard in the face before kneeling over him, taking him by the neck and slowly beginning to strangle the life out of him. She's screaming at him again, this time in German that he doesn't speak, and this close, the scant breaths he can draw tells him that her perfume is heavy and rose scented. 

Too late it begins to occur to him that he isn't getting nearly enough air, that he is suffocating and he should be stopping her, but he can't bring himself to do it. The gun in his waistband is there, the option to throw her off is there, but he cannot do it, because she is right about it all. If this is how he dies, by the spectre of his own ignorance, then so be it. Her screaming fades out as he loses consciousness, replaced with what sounds like the lapping of waves. 

Edward wakes up shouting, kicking and flailing for a moment before realizing that he is alone. He sits up and sees that the fire is once again unlit. It's still dark outside, but it's so cold Edward thinks it may be snowing. He considers how he got to the living room floor. Barbara had told him the drugs caused hallucination, he must have woken up in the study before walking here and hallucinating everything. After all, there's no such thing as ghosts. Edward knows this to be true. 

His throat burns as he swallows, then stands. His head still aches and he's still tired. Maybe another pill is in order. The air smells strange, like dying roses and a hint of smoke. He dismisses it out of hand and goes to find the pills he made. As he leaves, he steps over a lace handkerchief.

**Author's Note:**

> I have two other fics I should be working on right now but my own nightmares are kicking my ass rn so I'm taking it out on Ed. Sorry garbage boy. Also, I may write an epilogue to this, just cause I like the ending but I can do more and I know this.(hi. It's me again. I had to go back and edit the story cause I fucked up an important part. Sorry)


End file.
